On the exodus of 9 a.m. Sunday gym
Mass community from St. Stephen’s parish

by Elaine Klaassen

Since 1968, a Mass has been held in the gym of St. Stephen’s Catholic School (next to St. Stephen’s Church, next to the freeway, over by the Electric Fetus) at 9 a.m. every Sunday. People gravitating to the Mass over the years have found joy, love, community and peace there, as they have explored their faith and served others.

The 9 a.m. gym Mass is considered to be outside the mainstream of the Catholic Church. Women give homilies, GLBT members are welcome, the liturgy is not traditional, many ex-nuns and ex-priests participate. They are nonhierarchical and egalitarian. At the beginning of this year, they were asked by the Archdiocese to conform their liturgy to the traditional forms of the Roman Catholic Church, to worship at a different time or place, and to work with the new priest to reform their service.

In early March, the community formed a procession from the gym on Clinton Avenue South to their new worship home on Park Avenue. If you go on the internet and read the blogs and conversations about this event, you discover that the vast array of positions and opinions are not without controversy. As a non-Catholic, I wouldn’t dream of comprehending the complexity of it. I commend Gail Rajala Hayden, also not Catholic, for her courageous attempt to understand, in a loving way, the elements involved.